


Butterfly's First Flight

by kcstories



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-03
Updated: 2007-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:03:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcstories/pseuds/kcstories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one knows about the small, shabby cottage in the middle of the deep, dark forest. It's her best kept secret. Hers alone, as well as the boy who's staying there, the one she's been hiding...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly's First Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything you recognise from the books (or films). It all belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Inc., Warner Bros., and any other entities involved.  
> Pairing: Tom Riddle/Luna Lovegood  
> Warnings: Sexual situations (m/f), angst, AU-ish.

No one knows about the small, shabby cottage in the middle of the deep, dark forest. 

Luna stumbled upon it by accident during one of her many nighttime walks, and it has been her best kept secret ever since.

Hers alone, as well as the boy who's staying there, the one she's been hiding. He's nineteen, he says, and he appeared out of nowhere on the day that large mirror shattered. 

Well, at least that's her theory, and it's the story she'll be sticking to for her own peace of mind.

Besides, should he have been around for longer, she's quite sure he'd never disclose even the slightest detail to her—or to anyone.

He's hardly the sharing, extroverted type. 

Of course he does have extremely valid reasons to be secretive, for his very name is one that makes everyone shudder.

_Tom Marvolo Riddle._

Yet she's certain that he isn't who they all think he is, but they wouldn't understand and wouldn't believe her if she told them that deep in her heart, she's convinced that he can still be saved. 

If they knew, they'd take him away, lock him up, hurt him, and she can't—No, she _won't_ let that happen. 

In her book, he's innocent. 

Well, maybe not quite that innocent. 

But there's still hope. She knows there is. 

He just needs someone who'll listen, understand, and _care_— 

Or that's the general plan anyway, and that's a secret, too.

Her friends and family would call her misguided and naïve, but she knows she's neither. 

She just looks at the world from a different angle, has a differing perspective from what's common and obvious but then, who'd want to be common and obvious anyway and for which purpose? 

Besides, just because it's different doesn't necessarily mean it's also wrong. 

***

  
Several times per day, she sneaks out food to him. Usually hers, sometimes Harry's - the boy doesn't have much of an appetite lately. 

She says the leftovers are for the Werdleywonks. 

Of course, there are no such creatures, but she's the only one who knows that, because she's the one who invented the word, and besides, she's fairly insignificant in this war and so they pay her little mind to begin with.

Sometimes she's gone for hours and assuming her absence is even noticed, no one breathes a word.

***

On the fifth day, he asks her, "Why are you doing this?" 

She's surprised because he never talks much. "Someone has to," she replies with a shrug and a pleasant smile. 

He frowns, but continues to eat his soup in silence. 

***

  
He's never terribly talkative, but she doesn't mind. She can easily do all the talking for the both of them, and his aloofness makes him an excellent listener. 

So she gushes over the good stuff and cries over the bad and if he thinks her ever-shifting moods are peculiar, he never mentions it. 

She thinks his stoic attitude is a welcome change from all the fuss, because fuss is for people who refuse to see that the moon has a light and a dark side. 

***

It's almost the end of the war, she can tell, and when she asks him if he feels anything, a vague sense of loss perhaps, he always denies it, like he doesn't even know what she's referring to. 

Perhaps he genuinely doesn't.

Sometimes he wonders whether she's poisoning him, slowly, gradually, and if this is where her unexpected, unusual concern for his health springs from. 

One day he bluntly confronts her with his suspicions, and she's baffled and deeply hurt by the implication. 

"Of course not," she snaps and she doesn't understand why he can't see - _won't_ see - that she's merely trying to help him, and it's not her fault, not at all, that no one else ever tried that before. 

And on that day, that sunny October afternoon, she loses her cool and her temper because she's fed up - with him, with them, with all of it.

She lunges at him and raises her arm to deliver a hard slap, but he plucks her small, pale hand out of the air and pulls her to him instead. 

"What do you want from me, Luna?" he asks her, his gaze piercing, and she can only stare at him, her eyes wide and bewildered. 

She has no answer. 

She wants to help him, she still does, even now, even after _that_, but he can be so- so utterly _frustrating_. 

"I'm not some kicked puppy, you know," he informs her. 

She bites her lip. "I know." 

And she _does_. Stupid people don't make Ravenclaw, for Merlin's sake! 

"I'm not even a particularly nice person," he adds with a sneer. "Quite the contrary, in fact."

Her response is barely a whisper. "I know that too." 

"Then _why_, Miss Lovegood?" 

"I thought I might—" 

"What?" 

She takes a deep, bracing breath before she stammers out in a small voice, "Ch-change you?" 

He laughs then, and she's sure he's mocking her and she wishes he would stop, but he _won't_, because he's cruel and heartless and hasn't she known that all along?

_Of course._

Nonetheless, she had to believe in the goodness of people, but that was a big mistake in his case, maybe even a grave error in judgment overall, for if not mankind, then who else is responsible for the worst kinds of evil in this world?

Not everything can be blamed on Dark Magic.

Bitter tears streaming down her face, she yanks herself free from his grip and runs for the door.

She hopes to flee, out of sight and out of his reach, but he's much faster than she is. 

He grabs her arm with a roughness that almost bruises her pale, delicate skin, and all she can think is that this isn't going at all the way she planned it.

"You know," he says, "I could use someone with your faith and loyalty, not to mention your vast creativity and boundless imagination."

Then one of his arms is pinning her against the wall and with his free hand, he brushes some hair out of her eyes and wipes away the stray tear that's running down her cheek. 

"Your devotion to me," he whispers, "is beyond remarkable, Miss Lovegood."

She looks up and studying his face, she's amazed at how dark his eyes are. They have taken on a shade so dark they're almost black, and is that even possible, she wonders? 

_No,_ she convinces herself, _it's just a trick of the light; that's all._

But the desperate attempt to regain her wits doesn't exactly work and suddenly it dawns on her how close the two of them are standing. 

She can sense heat radiating between them, and she hasn't a clue whether to follow the lead of those butterflies fluttering around in her stomach, or to try and make another run for it.

She swallows thickly.

"I—" she begins, desperate to say something, _anything_, but then he's kissing her, drowning her words and stealing her breath, and it isn't soft or gentle, but oddly enough, she isn't scared.

Not anymore.

Not really. 

After all, he had many weeks and countless opportunities to harm her, and he chose not to. Why would he do so now? That just wouldn't make sense—

So she responds with an eagerness that's almost foreign to her, except it's not because she has a habit of pouring her heart and soul into everything she does.

_Everything._

"You keep surprising me, Luna," he says with a smirk. His breathing is heavy and the raw desire reflected in his eyes makes her knees buckle.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" she asks, feeling slightly nervous but also genuinely curious and eager to discover what will happen next. 

"Well, my dear, that depends."

He gives a meaningful grin, and then they're kissing again.

Truth be told, Luna hasn't a clue how these things go in practice, but she does possess a finely tuned sense of intuition and she hopes it won't fail her today. 

It never has before.

The minutes trickle by slowly, and she doesn't know how much time passes, exactly, while they stand there exploring each other's mouths with increasing passion, longing and need.

She's lost in the moment - in _him_ - and then she feels his hands fumbling with the buttons of her blouse.

No, that's not quite right. 

He isn't _fumbling_. 

His long, slim fingers don't tremble, not in the slightest, and he seems as self-assured about this as he appears to be about anything and everything else he approaches.  
She's vaguely aware of her crisp, pink blouse sliding to the floor.

"No undergarment, Miss Lovegood?" he whispers somewhere by her left ear, his warm breath making her shiver. 

She stifles a giggle at the old-fashioned word, for it seems out of place at a time like this and it makes their present situation even more surreal.  
"Bras are a dreadful nuisance," she says, "especially in the summer. The under wire things give me a terrible rash."

"I don't see any rash," he says.

"No, —" this time, she does giggle "—exactly."

He shakes his head. "You're a funny one, aren't you?" 

Before she has a chance to respond, his lips are on her neck, moving lower. Her heart is racing. 

As if by their own accord, the fingers of her right hand tangle in his thick, dark hair. She lets out a soft moan.

His hands move down to her breasts, caressing them gently. No one else has ever touched her there before, and the new experience is strange and a little scary but mostly— _very nice_.

His mouth continues its journey downwards and she supposes she should do something, reciprocate somehow. She's hardly the passive type and he won't mind her taking some initiative of her own, will he?

_No._

She lets her hands (they're shaking slightly and she isn't surprised) wander under his t-shirt. 

The shirt belongs to Charlie Weasley, technically, and the trousers are actually Auror Shacklebolt's. 

She thinks it's kind of funny how no one ever noticed that items of clothing just disappeared, but then there was a war on, so details like that were probably irrelevant.

The skin of Tom's back is warm and soft and she wonders what it would feel like, sliding against her own.

"Perhaps we're wearing too many clothes," he suggests, and his remark makes her chuckle.

"What is it?" he asks.

"I was just thinking the same thing," Luna says. "I mean, about the clothes."

"Ah." He smirks and unbuttons his shirt. "Great minds think alike, perhaps?"

She looks at him in the half-light, and she realizes that she wants him more than anything in the world, more than she has ever wanted anything else before, but where do these thoughts even come from?

Soon his shirt joins her blouse on the hard, wooden floor.

He wraps his arms around her and that tingle when bare skin meets bare skin she supposes is what electricity must feel like. 

They kiss again, slowly, with equal longing. His hands wander lower to cup her behind and pull her closer until, through the thin cotton fabric of her skirt and the knickers underneath, she can feel his arousal pressing against her in silent but urgent demand.

"You do have a bed, don't you?" she asks, unsure how else to broach the subject. She's rarely speechless, but this is new, _different_, and she feels like a fish out of water and rather unlike herself.

He smiles. "You know I do, Luna. You personally Transfigured the chair it was before."

"Well," she suggests, "wouldn't that be more comfortable, then?"

"Yes, as long as you're sure you want to—"

He almost sounds concerned, then, like he cares, which surprises her greatly, because he's not exactly the type who'd—

"I'd never violate anyone," he informs her, "not like this"

And his words feeds her suspicion that he really _can_ read minds, or _hers_ at least, for there really is no other explanation for his uncannily accurate guessing.

"Yes, I'm sure," she says and takes a deep breath. "I want us to—" 

Luna furrows her brows as she considers what to say next. 

'—make love'? No. Too tacky, and is this even love? Doubtful, she decides. 

'—shag?' Do they even use that word where he comes from, she wonders? Besides, Tom seems a little too sophisticated to approve of coarse language— even now.

She finally settles for "I'm all yours, Tom," and supposes that covers it quite adequately.

"Good." He releases her and with his back turned to her, undresses completely.

She can't but grin at that, because nudity has never been awkward to her, just natural. And it's kind of funny, really, to think of him as any kind of prude. Unless he's only trying to be respectful towards her, but then that doesn't make much sense either, considering what they're about to do.

Luna shakes her head. She grins widely and joins him on the bed. 

Almost immediately, he pulls her on top of him. Not what she expected either, but she isn't complaining.

"Come closer," he whispers, and she complies instantly, slowly bending forward.

His fingers reach for her breasts again. Beneath his touch, her nipples harden instantly. Her breath quickens. 

"Do you like that, Luna?"

"Yes." Her response is a cross between a whisper and a sigh.

He leans up slightly. A warm, soft tongue replaces his fingers. He licks and sucks one nipple and then switches his ministrations to the other. 

Luna shivers and gasps as his fingers move lower and briefly come to rest between her legs.

"Tom." 

She emits a soft moan, and is suddenly aware of something pressing against her lower belly. Biting her lip, she looks down at his erection, hard and eager to enter her. 

He pauses, just for a moment. "You've never done this before, have you?" he asks, studying her face intently. 

Luna frowns. Is she that obvious, she wonders, but then, what if she _is_? Being a virgin is nothing to be ashamed of, is it?

"No, I haven't," she replies, sounding less confident than she'd like. "D-do you mind?" she adds hesitantly, hoping with all her heart that he doesn't, because she wants this, she wants_him_, and when she thinks about it, this is without a doubt the strangest turn this adventure could have possibly taken.

"Not at all, my dear," he replies with a wicked chuckle, and kisses her again. "Actually," he continues in a sound that's closer to a hiss than a whisper, "I'm rather pleased that you're all mine."

"Yes," she says, "all yours," because he has a point and well, she doesn't mind, not really, just as long as he keeps doing… _that_ with his fingers and doesn't stop doing those other things with his mouth and tongue, and—

"Tom," she cries out, squinting her eyes shut.

He's moving inside her now; slowly, carefully and with a gentleness she never expected, definitely not from him.

His fingers join in again, touching her, rubbing against her where his hardness can't, and she hears herself moan loudly, the deep sound reverberating through the otherwise still cottage.

He thrusts up and down into her, and she moves with him, letting her instinct and all those incredible new sensations guide her.

She has touched herself, of course, but none of her solo explorations was ever this intense or quite as wonderful, and somehow, she never managed to reach completion either, so she would always stop after a while, left feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.

_Not so now,_ she thinks.

A delightful shiver runs up and down her spine. Her face is flushed, her breathing is ragged, and every nerve in her body tingles like it's on fire, and then she's swept away, soaring towards something….

"I—" she gasps out "God, Tom—"

She throws her head back and feels herself clench around him; the first orgasm of her life and it couldn't be more brilliant.

He follows shortly after. A few hard, sharp, almost frantic thrusts are followed by a loud groan and his unexpectedly sharp nails dig into her sides.

Through lidded eyes, she looks down to see his face contort in bliss. 

He really is beautiful, she thinks, even if he's hardly innocent and his chances at redemption are slim to non-existent.

But she can still change that—

_Can't she?_

She shifts slightly as he slips out of her. She lies down, resting her head against his left shoulder. Still breathing hard, he lightly drapes an arm around her waist; an unspoken request for her to stay.

And she will, for as long as he'll have her.

Gazing up through the dusty windowpanes, Luna watches in fascination how a colourful butterfly happily heads towards a spider's web. It's blissfully unaware of its grim fate in the same way that Luna has no premonition of much her future and the poor, doomed, fluttering creature have in common.


End file.
